Peaceful Prairie Ads in LA Times
If you haven’t heard, Peaceful Prairie’s "Milk Comes From Grieving Mothers" ad and their "Can You Tell the Difference" ad (free-range vs. battery hen) will be in tomorrow’s LA Times! The ads will reach nearly 900,000 households, and I’d like to thank everyone for their help with cross posting the story to various forums. You may recall the ads were originally going to be published in Yoga Journal or PINK magazines, but PPS was snubbed by both. For all of you who think everything happens for a reason, I think the LA Times is a far better platform and I’m very excited to hear what happens as a result of the ads.
You can still help out with the cost (or donate to serve the animals–remember that PPS is run by volunteers) by giving online or sending a check to:
Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary
81503 E County Rd 22
Deer Trail Co 80105
Though I’ve already given every penny allocated to charity for 2008 (including a discretionary amount outside of the allocation), I was thinking about how I could mine my monthly expenses and find $10 or $20 in unnecessary spending, as a couple of grassroots organizations have come to my attention, and $10 or $20 makes a bigger difference to them than a larger organization. Most people can easily find that little because they buy coffee, newspapers or magazines. Maybe they have their car washed or their nails done regularly. Or they go to movies rather than rent or getting them from the library. Maybe they pay someone to do their lawn and landscaping. None of that is true for me, though. However, I do have a penchant for some pricey wines (and some that aren’t so pricey), and I can easily come up with $20 per month, so I’m going to commit to that.
If you’ve ever worked with smaller nonprofits (with budgets under $1 million), you know how wonderful it feels to get a $10 donation. Someone is saying: "I may not have a lot, but I’m so connected to your cause that I will give whatever I can, right now. I love what you do and I’m not going to wait until I have more to donate."
What cause do you believe in? Can you demonstrate your commitment to the cause (or renew your commitment) by finding $10 to send? I promise you that your $10 matters. I promise you it matters to the animals at Peaceful Prairie.
I think the ads are great but I would like to point out that they do approach the plea for veganism from a "welfare" perspective. In other words, the focus is on animal suffering, not morality or property rights issues.
I do recognize that the nature of this approach leaves readers with little alternative but to stop supporting the industries altogether, rather than leaving open the option of "humane" alternatives, but it doesn't represent some far departure from a welfare-centric approach that is often criticized by anti-welfarists.
I would still like to see what a purely anti-welfarist campaign with a morality or property rights focus would look like. I'm not yet convinced that such a thing would be effective absent the suffering/empathy factor.
Kim,
I agree that there's a welfare angle, but I also see that the ads make the point that it's impossible, contrary to what vegetarians believe, for example, to "produce" eggs and dairy products in a way that is humane. What I see that's significant is a debunking of the myth that allows people to feel okay about being vegetarians by focusing on the two products they still eat. Also, the ads strike at the cage-free and free-range crowds, informing them that they're not hearing the whole story.
I don't look at the campaign and say "welfare" or "abolition." I see debunking and education.
But that's me.
I don't know that a property rights campaign would be effective, either. I'd have to see one in order to make that assessment.